1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data organization scheme for movies stored on a video server, and more particularly, a data organization scheme to reduce cell losses in a video server with an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) backbone network.
2. Description of Background Art
Video-on-demand and video authoring tools are emerging as very interesting and challenging multimedia applications. They require special hardware and networking protocols that can accommodate the real-time demands of these applications as well as the high bandwidth that they need.
Several video server architectures have been proposed for handling video-on-demand applications. The focus of the present invention is on an architecture proposed in "A Video Server Using ATM Switching Technology", Y. Ito and T. Tanaka, In The 5th International Workshop on Multimedia Communication, pages 341-346, May 1994, that uses multiple disks and file servers that are internally connected by an ATM network. The architecture described in the above publication is employed in the PanaViSS II.TM. video server. A challenge faced by the current systems is that system congestion can cause cell losses which reduce the quality of a movie displayed for a client. Simulation studies for the PanaViSS II.TM. video server have shown that the asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switch was responsible for most of the cell losses due to traffic congestion.